The Schrödinger Girl


Book Description

Set in the 1960s, this novel exploring the mysteries of the multiverse—and of human identity—is “a rare page turner that avoids the obvious traps.” —The New York Times Book Review Garrett Adams, an uptight behavioral psychology professor who refuses to embrace the 1960s, is in a slump. The dispirited rats in his latest experiment aren't yielding results, and his beloved Yankees are losing. As he sits at a New York City bar watching the Yanks strike out, he knows he needs a change. Then, at a bookstore, he meets a mysterious young woman, Daphne, who draws him into the turbulent and exciting world of Vietnam War protests and the music of Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and he starts to emerge from the numbness and grief over his father’s death in World War II. But when Daphne evolves into four separate versions of herself, Garrett’s life becomes complicated as he devotes himself to answering the questions about character and destiny raised by her iterations—an obsession that threatens to upend his relationship with a beautiful art historian, destroy his teaching job, and dissolve a longtime friendship. The Daphnes seem to exist in separate realities that challenge the laws of physics and call into question everything Garrett thought he knew. Now he must decide what is vision, what is science, and what is delusion. “[A] mind-bending experimental thriller.” —CrimeReads “An immensely interesting concept . . . dig[s] deep into psychology, philosophy, physics, and, most importantly, politics as Daphne shakes Garrett out of his indifference toward the cultural turmoil of the late ’60s.” —Kirkus Reviews “Brett's imaginative, amusing debut will appeal to fans of Nell Zink.” —Publishers Weekly “This absorbing novel vividly mines the physics and psychology of reality, and the reader’s reward is a moving story of love and loss.” —Hilma Wolitzer, author of An Available Man




Anomaly


Book Description

Reality is only an illusion. Except for those who can control it... Worst. Birthday. Ever. My first boyfriend dumped me—happy birthday, Josie!—my dad is who knows where, I have some weird virus that makes me want to hurl, and now my ex is licking another girl's tonsils. Oh, and I'm officially the same age as my brother was when he died. Yeah, today is about as fun-filled as the swamps of Dagobah. But then weird things start happening... Like I make something materialize just by thinking about it. When hottily-hot badass Reid Wentworth shows up on a motorcycle, everything changes. Like, everything. Who I am. My family. What really happened to my brother. Existence. I am Oculi, and I have the ability to change reality with my thoughts. Now Reid, in all his hotness, is charged with guiding and protecting me as I begin learning how to bend reality. And he's the only thing standing between me and the secret organization that wants me dead... The Schrodinger’s Consortium series is best enjoyed in order. Reading Order: Book #1 Anomaly Book #2 Enigma




Schrodinger's Ball


Book Description

“Tender, hilarious, and packed with delightful surprises . . . If Einstein and John Cleese had written a novel together, this would be it.” –Joseph Weisberg, author of 10th Grade Four friends set out into the night in Cambridge, Massachusetts, undeterred by the fact that one of them might actually be dead. Deb has perfected the half-hour orgasm. Grant, a geek, desperately desires Deb. Depressed Arlene has just improbably slept with Johnny, their leader, who recently and accidentally shot himself to death. But is he (or anyone) alive or dead until he’s observed to be by someone else? Maybe not, according to Dr. Erwin Schrödinger, the renowned physicist (1887—1961) who is, strangely, still ambling through the Ivy League town, offering opinions and proofs about how our perceptions can bring to life–and, in turn, reduce and destroy–other people and ourselves. And what does Schrödinger have to do with the President of Montana, who just declared war on the rest of the country, or the Harvard Square bag lady who is rewriting the history of the world? What’s the significance of the cat in the box, the “miracle molecule,” or the discarded piece of luncheon meat? Answer: All will collide by the end of this hypersmart, supersexy, madly moving novel that crosses structural inventiveness with easygoing accessibility, the United States with our internal states of being, philosophy with fiction. In Adam Felber’s dazzling debut, science and humanity collide in a kaleidoscopic story that is as hilarious as death and as heartbreaking as love. Praise: “A jangle of provocative absurdities playing off a pair of lovers so winning that readers, like the audiences at the old Hollywood romantic comedies, will all but rent ladders to uncross the stars that guide and misguide their efforts…. [Schrodinger’s Ball is] a romantic fantasy in three-quarter time, as brainy as it is airy, and unhinged either way.”–The New York Times “Felber has done the impossible: he’s made quantum theory seem hysterically funny and Cambridge, Massachusetts seem like a place of strange magic. Schrödinger’s Ball is a great read that will blind you with science and laughter.”–Chris Regan, writer for The Daily Show and co-author of America (The Book) “[A] crackling comic novel…[Felber] frolics in the fields of science....His wit and linguistic acrobatics make this clever mind-bender worth the ride.–Booklist “It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s got heart. All this and an umlaut too! Schrödinger’s Ball is thoroughly lively.”–Roy Blount Jr., author of Roy Blount’s Book of Southern Humor “If Einstein and John Cleese had written a novel together, this would be it. Felber creates a world that is both completely real and totally enchanted. Tender, hilarious, and packed with delightful surprises, Schrödinger’s Ball is even more original than other really original books.”–Joseph Weisberg, author of Tenth Grade “There’s no uncertainty about it. Schrödinger’s Ball once and for all proves the Adam Felber theory of comic novel writing: a book can be rollickingly funny, sharply satirical, romantic, and endearing–and involve quantum physics.”–Mo Rocca, author of All the Presidents’ Pets: The Story of One Reporter Who Refused to Roll Over ”Schrödinger’s Ball is as funny as hell, charming and kind, and perceptive and moving. Adam Felber has an amazing feel for the interior lives of his characters, even while using the shifting points-of-view of a David Foster Wallace.”–Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me! “[A] raucous, willfully absurd debut…designed to expose the beautiful randomness of existence….Felber has embraced postmodern fiction's favorite themes…and turned it into a work of broad comedy instead of a fit of fatalistic handwringing.”–Kirkus Reviews “Few novels attempting a deliberately bad explanation of the uncertainty principle could surpass this inspired romp….Felber's debut is illogically, warmly entertaining.”–Publishers Weekly




Erwin Schrodinger and the Quantum Revolution


Book Description

Erwin Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist famous for his contribution to quantum physics. He won the Nobel Prize in 1933 and is best known for his thought experiment of a cat in a box, both alive and dead at the same time, which revealed the seemingly paradoxical nature of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger was working at one of the most fertile and creative moments in the whole history of science. By the time he started university in 1906, Einstein had already published his revolutionary papers on relativity. Now the baton of scientific progress was being passed to a new generation: Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, Niels Bohr, and of course, Schrödinger himself. In this riveting biography John Gribbin takes us into the heart of the quantum revolution. He tells the story of Schrödinger's surprisingly colourful life (he arrived for a position at Oxford University with both his wife and mistress). And with his trademark accessible style and popular touch, he explains the fascinating world of quantum mechanics, which underpins all of modern science.




Schrödinger's Dog


Book Description

A striking debut novel about the power of a father’s love for his son and the heart-wrenching choices he has to make in the face of death. Yanis’s world is Pierre, the son he raised as a single parent. For nearly twenty years, Yanis spent his nights as a cabdriver with Pierre always at his side, so as not to miss a moment in each other’s company. Yanis and Pierre also share a love of diving—in pursuit of that magical moment when they lose themselves in the deep sea. When enveloped by the natural world, father and son relish an escape from life’s pressures. But for some time, Pierre has been tired. Too tired. Despite how attentively Yanis watched him, Yanis missed the early signs of illness. Faced with the harsh reality of his son’s numbered days, Yanis struggles to invent a life his son won’t have the time to live.




Inconvenient Daughter


Book Description

“Illuminates with cutting truth the layers of longing and grief which underlie a transracial adoption . . . sharply written, intense, and page-turning.” —Randy Susan Meyers, bestselling author of Waisted Rowan Kelly knows she’s lucky. After all, if she hadn’t been adopted, she could have spent her days in a rice paddy, or a windowless warehouse assembling iPhones—they make iPhones in Korea, right? Either way, slowly dying of boredom on Long Island is surely better than the alternative. But as she matures, she realizes that she’ll never know if she has her mother’s eyes, or if she’d be in America at all had her adoptive parents been able to conceive. Rowan sets out to prove that she can be someone’s first choice. After running away from home—and her parents’ rules—and ending up beaten, barefoot, and topless on a Pennsylvania street courtesy of Bad Boy Number One, Rowan attaches herself to Never-Going-to-Commit. When that doesn’t work out, she fully abandons self-respect and begins browsing Craigslist personals. But as Rowan dives deeper into the world of casual encounters with strangers, she discovers what she’s really looking for. With a fresh voice and a quick wit, Lauren J. Sharkey dispels the myths surrounding transracial adoption, the ties that bind, and what it means to belong. A Finalist for Foreword Review’s 2020 INDIES Book of the Year Award in Adult Fiction—Multicultural “Stirring . . . a moving account of Rowan’s difficult reckoning with her identity. This is an adept portrayal of the long shadow of abuse and the difficulty of being an adoptee.” —Publishers Weekly




Luster


Book Description

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Notable Book of the Year WINNER of the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020 A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The New York Times Book Review, O Magazine, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Shondaland, Boston Globe, and many more! "So delicious that it feels illicit . . . Raven Leilani’s first novel reads like summer: sentences like ice that crackle or melt into a languorous drip; plot suddenly, wildly flying forward like a bike down a hill." —Jazmine Hughes, The New York Times Book Review No one wants what no one wants. And how do we even know what we want? How do we know we’re ready to take it? Edie is stumbling her way through her twenties—sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage—with rules. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics weren’t hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into Eric’s home—though not by Eric. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows. Irresistibly unruly and strikingly beautiful, razor-sharp and slyly comic, sexually charged and utterly absorbing, Raven Leilani’s Luster is a portrait of a young woman trying to make sense of her life—her hunger, her anger—in a tumultuous era. It is also a haunting, aching description of how hard it is to believe in your own talent, and the unexpected influences that bring us into ourselves along the way. “An irreverent intergenerational tale of race and class that’s blisteringly smart and fan-yourself sexy.” —Michelle Hart, O: The Oprah Magazine




The Book of Two Ways


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Small Great Things and A Spark of Light comes a “powerful” (The Washington Post) novel about the choices that alter the course of our lives. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY MARIE CLAIRE Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She’s on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw fifteen years ago: Wyatt Armstrong. Dawn, miraculously, survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised. She has led a good life. Back in Boston, there is her husband, Brian, their beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, in which she helps ease the transition between life and death for her clients. But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a career Dawn once studied for but was forced to abandon when life suddenly intervened. And now, when it seems that fate is offering her second chances, she is not as sure of the choice she once made. After the crash landing, the airline ensures that the survivors are seen by a doctor, then offers transportation to wherever they want to go. The obvious destination is to fly home, but she could take another path: return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways—the first known map of the afterlife. As the story unfolds, Dawn’s two possible futures unspool side by side, as do the secrets and doubts long buried with them. Dawn must confront the questions she’s never truly asked: What does a life well lived look like? When we leave this earth, what do we leave behind? Do we make choices . . . or do our choices make us? And who would you be if you hadn’t turned out to be the person you are right now?




A Life of Erwin Schrödinger


Book Description

Biography of the Austrian physicist




The Lure of Dangerous Women


Book Description

Dangerous women aren’t always the ones who carry guns and take down the bad guys. Sometimes, the most dangerous women are the ones we don’t even notice -- the sultry siren crooning in a smoky bar, the innocent young girl twirling in her summer dress, the soft-shoed nurse who helps the comatose. In this collection, award-winning author Shanna Germain gathers seven of her darkest, lushest fantasy and horror stories about strong, smart women who know that danger is a matter of scale -- and of which side you happen to be standing on.